… gauge conversion of the 90-km-long Nuapada-Gunupur railway is to be finished," said A K Goyal, general manager, East Coast Railway here on Wednesday.

The gauge conversion work was going on very rapidly and it would be completed by the end of March, he said. In 2007-08, the Railway Ministry has provided Rs 25 crore for this project. The ministry has targetted to extend the line up to rayagada in the next phase.

The 118-year-old railway line was established by the then Maharaja of Paralakhemundi, Krushna Chandra Gajapati in 1889 for his personal use. The narrow gauge railway line was handed over to the Railway Ministry in 1949. Since then the people of southern Orissa have been demanding its upgradation.

Apart from the Nuapada-Gunupur line, the ministry has also targeted to complete the doubling of the railway lines in 15.3 km length Khurdha-Delang, a part of the Khurdha-Puri line, 12 km Cuttack-Barang and Titilagarh-Kesinga, a part of the 47-km long Lanjigarh-Titilagarh railway line by the end of march next, goyal said.

The Puri railway station would be expanded and the platforms would be laid afresh to facilitate easy access to passengers to board the train. This apart the Puri Railway Station washing lines would also be developed and the station would be given a new look with an estimated cost of over Rs 100 15 crore and the station would be designed in the lines of the Jagannath Temple, he said.

The incomplete Puri-Khurdha road double tracking would be completed soon, he said. The Ministry was ready to allocate 50 per cent of the total cost of the new tracks to Konark if the State agrees to bear the rest, the Minister informed.

Trains/Fare/Reservation Availability Status Between Important Stations — Editor’s comment July 30 2005: There is a list of about 150 stations there, but the list only includes two stations in Orissa, Bhubaneswar and Rourkela. They should atleast add Puri, Khurda Rd, Cuttack and Sambalpur to that list. Moreover, Khurda Road should be considered to be in Bhubaneswar area and trains that skip Bhubaneswar but pass through Khurda Road should show up when queries about Bhubaneswar are asked.

Doubling (293 crores as opposed to 293.16 crores in 2006-07): Talcher-Cuttack-Paradeep with 2nd bridge on Mahanadi and Birupa (64 crores), Cuttack-Barang (55 crores), Barang-Khurda Rd 3rd line (88 crores), Rajathagarh-Barang (86 crores). [Sambada lists some more doubling projects that is not listed in the pink book (ecor, se). Sambada claims the total 2007-08 budget for doubling to be 449.5 crores.]

In 2006-07, Railways propose to complete over 550 kms of New Lines. The sections include : Keonjhar-Daitari of Banspani-Daitari. With the completion of the above sections, the connection of Jakhapura (near Jajpur Road, between Bhubaneswar and Jajpur Rd) to Daitari, Keonjhar, Bansapani, to Rajkharsuan (between Chakradharpur and Tata) will be complete. See map. This will create alternate paths from Bhubaneswar to Rourkela (not much shorter, if any, than BBSR-Sambalpur-RKL though), and Bhubaneswar to Tata (a bit shorter than BBSR-KGP-Tata).

Completion of doubling of Titlagarh-Kesinga, Sambalpur-Sarala and Jharsuguda bye-pass in Orissa. Doubling of Padapahar-Banspani have also been included in the budget. In addition, works of doubling of Sambalpur-Titlagarh have been included in the Budget. Other doubling plans include Koraput-Kirandul, Kottavalasa-Koraput, and Bhadrak-Nergundi 3rd line.

Wishlist: Naraj-Khordha-Khurda-Road line as part of a circular rail for the Bhubaneswar area, Khordha-KhurdaRd should be constructed immediately as part of the KhurdaRd-Balangir line, then complete the Khorda-Naraj part and then make Khorda another reliever station for Bhubaneswar. Then there should be a train running between Cuttack-Barang-Bhubaneswar- Khurda Rd-Khordha-Naraj-Barang at frequent intervals.

Introduce a BBSR-Rourkela half day Intercity train and/or extend BBSR-Sambalpur train to Rourkela. [BBSR-Rourkela distance is Rourkela-Jharsuguda (102) + Jharsuguda-Sambalpur (49)+ Sambalpur-Talcher(175) + Talcher-Barang(98) + Barang-BBSR (16) = 440km] So a BBSR-Howrah (437 km) Janashtabdi/Dhauli kind of timing, or the BBSR-Vijag (443km) Intercity timing would be ok. For example: If it starts from BBSR at 6 AM then using the 8413 timing it can reach Sambalpur by 11 AM and can reach Rourkela by 1:40 PM. Then it can leave Rourkela by 2:30 PM and reach BBSR by 10:10 PM. If this is successful then have another train with the opposite timing. I.e., leaving Rourkela at 6 AM reaching BBSR at 1:40 PM and leaving BBSR at 2:30 PM and reaching Rourkela at 10:10 PM. Extend Puri-Sambalpur and Rayagada-Sambalpur expresses to Jharsuguda so that passengers from BBSR/Puri/CTC can connect to many of the trains that go west (to Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad etc.) from Jharsuguda.

Goal: More frequency between BBSR and Mumbai: Do one or more of the following.

Increase frequency of weekly 2145/2146 BBSR-Mumbai express(so that twice a week it goes in the current route via Anugul-Sambalpur, twice a week it goes via Vijainagaram-Rayagada- Titlagarh- Raipur, and thrice a week via Vizag-Koraput- Rayagada-Raipur); [Similar to the trains connecting Puri-BBSR to ADI.]

Goal: Increase connectivity between Western Orissa and Allahbad-Delhi ( Public demand):

Extend 8601 Hatia Jammu Tawi express (now via Allahbad and Delhi) to Sambalpur (via Rourkela) first and may be after a year all the way till Bhubaneswar

Increase frequency of Vizag-Delhi(now planned to be extended to Amritsar) express and on the new days let it take the route of Vizag-Koraput-Rayagada-Titilagarh-Balangir- Sambalpur and then follow the rest of the schedule.

Increase frequency of BBSR Rajdhani (perhaps once or twice plying through Sambalpur, once plying through Keonjhar, and going beyond BBSR to Viskhapatnam);

Goal: Better connection between western Orissa and South India, especially Hyderabad ( Public demand) [There are direct trains from Rourkela/Sambalpur to Bhubaneswar, Howrah, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, but none to Hyderabad currently]:

Introduce a Tata-Hyderabad Express going through Rourkela. [This should be happening soon, as Tata has excellent connections to all parts of India except to Hyderabad. May be ECOR can chip in towards this.] (Note in 2006 budget a new weekly Tata- Bangalore express is proposed. This may be routed through Hyderabad.)

Have a new Rayagada-Raipur (343 kms) day time express and Balangir-Vijainagaram (336 km) day-time express.

Increase frequency of weekly BBSR-Bangalore express and extend it to Mysore;

A Bhopal-Nagpur-BBSR-Puri train. (Bhopal and Nagpur are very close to Orissa but are not properly connected to BBSR by Rail.)

Once Daitari-Bansapani line is completed, run one of the BBSR-SiniJn-Delhi train via Keonjhar on some of the days. (BBSR-Kenojhar-Sini = 410 kms while BBSR-Tata-Sini=486 kms)

a daily North Orissa Express train between Baripada and Puri. (in 2006-07 plan there is a thrice daily Baripada-BBSR train. This train is operational now.)

extend one of the trains to Delhi to beyond say Chandigarh/Jammu

a daily train between Baripada and Sambalpur;

a daily train between Rourkela and Berhampur;

a daily train between Paradeep and Berhampur;

extend 8447/8448 BBSR-Koraput express upto Jeypur;

increase frequency of 5639/5640 weekly Puri – Guwahati express;

once the line between Howrah-BBSR is completely electrified [done Dec 1 05] an almost non-stop twice a day, 4 hrs each way train between Howrah-BBSR;

Extend Konark express to start from Baripada as well as 2145/2146 BBSR-Mumbai express to start from Baripada. [There are direct trains from Balasore to BBSR, Howrah, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, but none to Mumbai. In general all train going west that start from BBSR should be extended to Balasore];

make a reliever station to Bhubaneswar with express halts at Patia. It is 1 km to the right of Magnetic Square in this map, and 2 km to the top of Patia square in this map. Note that this station is 3 km from Infocity, 1 km from KIIT, 2 km from Silicon, 3.5 km from Trident, 2 km from Koustuv, 2 km from College of Engg, 2 km from CIPET, 5 km from Fortune tower, etc.